Network slicing, until very recently, seemed like a distant and rather esoteric vision, yet at a time when many operators are sceptical about the 5G business case, there is real impetus to make slicing real and deployable. Slicing could greatly improve operators’ ability to monetize their 5G networks and their virtualization projects, because it harnesses the capabilities of both those technologies, and diversifies they way they can be used to drive new revenues. It allows virtual slices of network capacity to be called up for particular services, industries or customers, automatically optimized for their individual connectivity requirements (such as low latency, high bandwidth or high device density). That makes operators far better equipped to support vertical industries such as manufacturing,…